Christine Lagarde: the Wrong Person to Deal with the Greek Crisis.

 

 

Protesters gather in Trafalgar Square to support the Greek government’s attempts to throw off austerity (Photo: Chris Plexidas via Twitter).

 

Yesterday Evening:

The Greece Solidarity Campaign wants a European conference to cancel Greece’s debts, and around three thousand people are at the square now to show their support and hear speeches from a range of MPs and activists including Paul Nowak from the TUC, Owen Jones, Sarah-Jayne Clifton of Jubilee Debt Campaign, Andrew Burgin of Left Unity, and John Rees of the People’s Assembly.

Jeremy Corbyn has said: “There is an escalating crisis of Greek society. There is no sane solution to the situation in Greece that involves repaying this debt. “The only sensible way forward is to cancel the Greek debt – or at least substantial swaths of it – and for the international community to support Greece’s democratically elected government to rebuild its society and its economy.”

Andrew Burgin from Greece Solidarity Campaign said: “We are coming together today to stand with the people of Greece and say: no to austerity, yes to democracy.

London 24.

The news today:

If Greece does not transfer the equivalent of €1.6bn to the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday, it will become the first advanced economy to default to the fund in its 71-year history. The country will also take a step closer to what some fear could be its exit from the eurozone and another round of economic turmoil in Europe.

Writes the Financial Times.

It continues on site with a list of “10 things worth keeping in mind.”

One should add another “thing” to remember.

Christine Lagarde is the IMF managing director.

 Christine Lagarde was appointed head of the IMF – following Dominique Strauss Kahan’s ‘resignation’.

One reason was that it was “buggin’s turn’ – the post would still be held by a French person, but after the (Socialist politician) this time it would be a right-wing French politician.

Largarde’s political career has taken place  essentially in the exalted regions of appointees, beyond more than nominal engagement in electoral politics (councillor in the 12th arrondissement of Paris).

But she was, from 2007 to 2011, Ministre de l’Économie under  Prime Minister François Fillon (more detailed summary on French Wikipedia)

That is,  perhaps more significantly, during the reign of President Nicolas Sarkozy.

This was a right-wing government pursuing a neo-liberal economic strategy, mired in scandal.

This relates to a notorious, and long-lasting, ‘affaire’.

Investigation into alleged misuse of power

On 3 August 2011, a French court ordered an investigation into Lagarde’s role in a €403 million arbitration deal in favour of businessman Bernard Tapie. On March 20, 2013, Legarde’s apartment in Paris was raided by French police as part of the investigation.^[57] On 24 May 2013, after two days of questioning at the Court of Justice of the Republic, Lagarde was assigned the status of “assisted witness”, meaning that she was not herself under investigation in the affair. According to a press report from June 2013, Lagarde has been described by Stephane Richard, the CEO of France Telecom (a former aide to Lagarde when she was Finance Minister), who has himself been put under formal investigation in the case, as having been fully briefed before approving the arbitration process which benefited Bernard Tapie. Subsequently in August 2014 the Court of Justice of the Republic announced that it had formally started a negligence investigation into Lagarde’s role in the arbitration of the Tapie case.

This is what Lagarde said in an interview with the Guardian in  May 2012 when asked about the crisis in Greece.

….when she studies the Greek balance sheet and demands measures she knows may mean women won’t have access to a midwife when they give birth, and patients won’t get life-saving drugs, and the elderly will die alone for lack of care – does she block all of that out and just look at the sums?

“No, I think more of the little kids from a school in a little village in Niger who get teaching two hours a day, sharing one chair for three of them, and who are very keen to get an education. I have them in my mind all the time. Because I think they need even more help than the people in Athens.” She breaks off for a pointedly meaningful pause, before leaning forward.

“Do you know what? As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about all those people who are trying to escape tax all the time. All these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax.”

Even more than she thinks about all those now struggling to survive without jobs or public services? “I think of them equally. And I think they should also help themselves collectively.” How? “By all paying their tax. Yeah.”

It sounds as if she’s essentially saying to the Greeks and others in Europe, you’ve had a nice time and now it’s payback time.

“That’s right.” She nods calmly. “Yeah.”

At the time Le Monde commented that the Greeks felt “shocked” and  “humiliated” by the Director of the IMF’s lecture on how, after living the life of Riley, they should now pay their taxes.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon remarked that it was Greek ship-owners and the Orthodox Church who ahd avoided paying taxes, not the ordinary people.  (Les Grecs se disent “humiliés” par les propos de Christine Lagarde.)

Largarde has made one notable further gaff (Wikipedia),

In January 2015, on the death of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Lagarde said “he was a strong believer in pushing forward women’s rights”.

Christine Lagarde is a vegetarian and is near-teetotal. Her pastimes include hanging out in the gym, swimming and cycling.

 

Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA): 2nd National Conference.

The psychodrama of the SWP (we still do not know what the Central Committee decided on launching a purge last Sunday) continues.

It is a relief to look at the political activity of a serious left party, the French Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA).

The NPA held its 2nd National conference last weekend.

After substantial groups of NPA supporters have left the party to join the Front de gauche (FdG), they stand at 2 , 500 members (at one point a few years back, they had nearly reached 10,000). *

This is from a brief report  on the party’s site (from Agence France Presse). More information in detail begin here.

After the conference Alain Krivine said,

“”Il y a une volonté d’arriver à une recomposition et d’en finir avec les tendances”,

That there is a will to re-align inside the party, and to end the NPA’s divisions into tendencies.

This remains to be seen.

Party members had voted in advance for  the different (4) motions that were debated at the Congress.

55% backed the motion  “une orientation pour agir” which won with  51% of the vote. Sandra Demarcq, spokesperson for the tendency said that they intended to “get the NPA moving” against the present – Socialist-led – government and its politics of austerity.  To achieve that aim the NPA intended to speak to all organisations which do not support the government, including the  Front de gauche, with a view to joint action. On one issue their position, however, remains unchanged. “We are not going to fuse with the FdG, because we have important differences. But the NPA on its own won’t win” (“On ne va pas proposer de fusion avec le FG car il y a des désaccords importants, mais le NPA seul n’y arrivera pas”)

The FdG had to recognise the need for a real left-wing opposition to  Prime Minister Ayrault’s Cabinet.

The platform, “Quelle politique d’interpellation du FG“,  from the “courant révolutionnaire” won 32% of the vote. Gaël Quirante, from the tendency asked exactly how the NPA was going to approach the FdG.

On what to do for the 2014 municipal and European elections – that is, if alliances with other left groups would be possible – this was left to an enlarged ‘conseil politique national’ (national political council) to decide.

Libération has commented on the “hangover” facing the NPA , after its electoral failure, the split off by many of its tendencies, its leadership crisis and its isolation.

Le Monde cites the former NPA stalwart, and FdG supporter, Pierre-François Grond, “ “Ce congrès, c’est la confirmation de l’échec du projet fondateur du NPA”, This conference confirms the set back faced by the founding project of the NPA.

It would seem that when the largest opposition group in the NPA, the “revolutionary” current, calls for a ‘unity’ from below (“Quelle politique d’interpellation du Front de gauche ? Par en haut ou par les luttes ?”, ignoring the FdG’s ‘leaderships’. Support for this  ‘united front from below indicates that the party’s difficulties are far from over.

*Note: “A sa création en 2009, le NPA comptait 9.000 adhérents. C’était deux anaprès qu’Olivier Besancenot eut atteint 4% à l’élection présidentielle. Ilsont aujourd’hui 2.500.”

Gauche Anticapitaliste to leave the NPA.

 

Le Monde reports,

Dernier acte de la crise du Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste (NPA) ? Le courant de la “Gauche anticapitaliste”, emmené par l’ex-bras droit d’Olivier Besancenot, Pierre-François Grond, devrait quitter les rangs du parti pour rejoindre le Front de gauche le 8 juillet. Ce week-end-là, le NPA doit réunir une conférence nationale pour tirer le bilan de l’élection présidentielle.

La Gauche anticapitaliste validera alors un accord passé mercredi 27 juin avec le PCF et le Parti de gauche, qui signifie l’intégration du courant au Front de gauche. Le NPA pourrait ainsi voir partir entre 300 et 500 militants.

Is this the last act in the drama of the NPA’s crisis? The “gauche anticapitaliste” tendency, led by Olivier Besancenot’s former right-hand man, Pierre-François Grond, should be leaving the Party to join the Front de Gauche on the 8th of July. That is, during the weekend when the NPA will be holding a national conference to draw up a balance-sheet of the Presidential elections.

The Gauche Anticapitaliste will carry out an agreement, settled on Wednesday the 27th of June with the Parti Commmuniste Français (PCF)  and the Parti de Gauche to integrate the tendency within the Front de Gauche. Between 300 and 500 activists could leave the NPA 

This follows two previous waves of former NPA groups who have left to join the Front de Gauche,  the Gauche unitaire” of  Christian Picquet who left in 2009 and  “Convergence alternative” who quit in 2010.